Central Park Driver

I have to disagree with the last reviewer. The movie is not as bad as he makes it out to be. Yeah, of course it has it's faults like majority of 80's B Grade movies but I haven't seen Central Park Drifter in years up until now and still find the film to be watchable. If you are looking for the hairs to stand up on the back of your neck and want to watch this for thrills you won't get it here. If you just want a horror film to watch with vampires involved and has an OK storyline then you can be entertained. If you want to take this seriously as I speculate the previous reviewer did, then you won't. I rate this movie half for its efforts based on storyline and the performances of actors was OK. As for killings...the murders were average and showed little blood. You won't find it gory here.

This is a real find, a sharp, noir tale of isolation and loneliness on both sides of the mortal divide. Stylish compositions and lighting, made more effective by a storyline set entirely at night, shape the story of Stephen, a world-weary, centuries-old vampire drawing closer to his longed-for death by feeding only on already-dying women. The victims remain alive but develop an intense bloodlust which soon wraps the city in an epidemic of slasher murders, each needing blood at the same time as all the others (in a striking scene, one woman, trapped in prison at the moment that her sisters are killing, desperately tears open her vampire wound and drinks her own blood). Only the latest victim, Michelle, a terminal cancer patient with whom Stephen has fallen in love, is spared the craving. Michelle tries to save Stephen, but soon both the police and her jealous husband are closing in... The frequently half-naked female hunters add a fetishistic touch (but there's plenty of male nudity as well), and scene after scene takes place in red-walled rooms or tiny pools of light surrounded by pitch-black, neon-studded darkness and wet gleaming streets, lending an overall stark and haunting vibe. If you're a vampire fan but plush Gothic romances and big-budget killfests both leave you yawning, seek this one out.

Vampire Stephen Tsepes (Michael A. Miranda) works the graveyard shift as a taxi driver, preying on the suicidal, the terminally ill and the occasional street gang. When he meets music video director Michelle Hayden (Helen Papas), who only has a few months left to live, he falls in love with the woman, much to the annoyance of her womanising husband Eric (Cliff Stoker), who teams up with a pal to try and end the vampire's existence.

Not to be confused with the 1990 Stephen King film of the same name, Graveyard Shift is an erotic vampire film that is more akin to Tony Scott's dreary dud The Hunger than MY favourite vampire films of the '80s, Fright Night, The Lost Boys and Vamp. Writer director Jerry Ciccoritti goes for style over substance, his film artfully shot, swathed in neon light, with plenty of fetishistic imagery. The visuals are undeniably pretty at times, but the whole thing is slow and somewhat pretentious in its approach, the pompous, oversentimental dialogue delivered in a surprisingly stolid manner that results in tedium.

Followed by a sequel, The Understudy: Graveyard Shift II, in 1989, so I guess someone must have liked it.

Not to be confused with the (actually slightly superior) film from 1990 of the same title, Graveyard Shift is the story of a vampire taxi driver. The premise of the film actually seems quite interesting; a taxi driver would be a good job for a vampire considering all the opportunity he would have for finding victims and this coupled with a trashy eighties vibe and some decent gore could have lead to a decent film; but instead what we end up is a thoroughly turgid vampire flick devoid of most of the elements that make the subgenre great. The base plot sprang from the central premise is that the vampire/cabbie meets a young woman that he likes and turns her into a vampire instead of killing her; leading her jealous husband to take revenge. The main reason the film doesn't work is down to the dull script which doesn't give us any reason to care for the characters or anything that is happening in the film. The script defies logic and most of the characters are just 'there'. There a few good moments in the film, but mostly it's just trash and ultimately rather boring too. I'm not surprised that this film has not won itself a better reputation - the reason is simply that it doesn't deserve one. Leave this rubbish well alone!

Jerry Ciccoritti's darkly erotic, appealingly stylised Canadian shocker has brooding swarthy-sexy vampire, Stephen Tsepes, (Michael A. Miranda) moonlighting as a taciturn NY cabbie, tirelessly working the gloomy night shift. This ancient predator hides in plain night; as some of, Stephen's more physically enticing female passengers only belatedly discover that their journey is about to take a terminal turn onto roads FAR less travelled!

This weirdly romantic, deliciously eccentric, unfairly neglected Canadian creature feature is engagingly performed by a talented cast of unknowns, with a number of splendidly grisly kills, plus an appreciably sensual, frequently skewed atmosphere that is heightened by ace composer, Nicholas Pike's spare, fabulously evocative synth score. An imaginative, creatively photographed, smartly directed horror film, and I think it's reasonable to say that in an era of conspicuously recycled mediocrity, it's more than just to single out the delirious hidden delights of uncommonly strange 80s horror fare like sleeper cult classic, 'Graveyard Shift' aka 'Central Park Drifter'. Jerry Ciccoritti's pervy, plasma-packed nightmare remains a toothsome terror treat well worth sinking your hungry, horror-loving fangs into! - In a blackened city infamous for its nefarious nocturnal denizens, sinisterly stalking Vampire cabbie, Stephen Tsepes, is a fare to remember!'